Facebook's privacy issues raise concern of EU regulators

Facebook's recent privacy issues may not be competition matters according to the EU antitrust chief.

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Although Facebook is currently facing difficulties with the EU regulators regarding its privacy policy, the social networking site is not in breach of the EU's competition rules.

The EU's antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager was critical of how the company required its 1.6 billion monthly users to agree to its new privacy terms but she made it clear that the company had not broken any competition rules.

In a speech delivered at a conference in Copenhagen, Vestager offered further insight into the matter at hand, saying: “The German authority is concerned that Facebook may have forced its users to accept privacy terms that aren't in line with the data protection rules. But as our German colleagues rightly point out, even if Facebook has broken those rules, that doesn't automatically mean that it has also broken the competition rules as well.”

The German government has consistently been critical of Facebook and the way it wields the immense power that its large user base provides. Political leaders and regulators have also disagreed with the way in which the social network has not taken action when it comes to tackling hate speech and anti-immigrant messages propagated on its site.

Last month, Facebook also gained the attention of regulators when it decided to ease the privacy policy of its popular messaging app WhatsApp. This led to the chair of Europe's leading group of privacy regulators to commit to examining the reasoning behind the company's decision.